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Moment after moment, scene after scene, “Secrets & Lies” unfolds with the fascination of eavesdropping. We are waiting to see what these people will do next, caught up in the fear and the hope that they will bring the whole fragile network of their lives crashing down in ruin. When they prevail--when common sense and good hearts win over lies and secrets--we feel almost as relieved as if it had happened to ourselves.

Mike Leigh 's best films work like that. He finds a rhythm of life--not “real life,” but real life as fashioned and shaped by all the art and skill his actors can bring to it--and slips into it, so that we are not particularly aware we're watching a film; he has a scene here, set at a backyard barbecue, that shows exactly how family gatherings are sometimes a process of tiptoeing through minefields. One wrong word, and the repressed resentments of decades will blow up in everyone's face.

It would be easy, but wrong, to describe the plot of “Secrets & Lies” as being about an adopted black woman in London who seeks out her natural birth mother, discovers the woman is white, and arranges to meet her. That would be wrong because it sidesteps the real subject of the film, which is that the mother and her family have been all but destroyed by secrets and lies. The young black woman is the catalyst to change that situation, yes, but her life was fine before the action starts and will continue on an even keel afterward.

Given the deep waters it dives into, “Secrets & Lies” is a good deal funnier and more entertaining than we have any right to expect. It begins with the black woman, a thirtyish optometrist with the quintessentially British name of Hortense Cumberbatch (played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste ). After the death of her adoptive mother, she goes to an adoption agency to discover the name of her birth mother, and thinks there must have been a mistake, since the papers indicate her mother was white. There was no mistake.

We meet the mother, named Cynthia, who is played as a fearful, nervous wreck by Brenda Blethyn (who won the best actress award at Cannes for this performance). She lives in an untidy council house with her daughter Roxanne ( Claire Rushbrook ), who works as a street sweeper, is in a foul mood most of the time, and has a boyfriend whom she has thoroughly cowed. Cynthia mourns the fact that her beloved younger brother Maurice ( Timothy Spall ) hasn't called her in more than two years, and blames Maurice's wife Monica ( Phyllis Logan ), that “toffee-nosed cow,” for the long silence.

The phone rings. It is Hortense. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, dear--there's been some mistake!” says Cynthia. But Hortense persists. Cynthia hangs up. The phone rings again, and she approaches it like an animal sure the trap is set to spring. But she agrees to meet Hortense, and the scene of their meeting--outside a tube station and then in a nearby cafe--is one of the great sequences in all of Mike Leigh's work, based on incredulity, disbelief, memory, embarrassment and acceptance. “But you can't be my daughter, dearie!” Cynthia exclaims. “I mean . . . just look at you!” She claims she has never even slept with a black man, and she is telling the truth, but then a moment comes when she arrives at a startling revelation, and we don't know whether to smile or hold our breaths.

Much of the film is devoted to the domestic life of Maurice and Monica. He is a photographer specializing in wedding pictures; she is a loving woman whose life becomes unbearable for herself and her husband every 28 days. Spall, whom you may remember as the proprietor of the doomed French restaurant in Leigh's “ Life Is Sweet ,” is a born conciliator, wanting to make everyone happy and usually failing.

The movie arrives at its magnificent conclusion at the family reunion, the barbecue where Cynthia brings Hortense and introduces her as a “friend from work.” Soon the family is trying to puzzle out why an eye doctor would be employed at a cardboard box factory. Leigh and his actors (who develop the characters and dialogue together, in collaboration) play this scene in one unbroken take, in which six characters eat, drink, talk, and stumble across secrets and lies.

I have admired the work of Mike Leigh ever since 1972, when his “ Bleak Moments ” premiered in the Chicago Film Festival. For many years he was an outcast from British cinema; it's hard to get financing when you don't have a script or even the idea for a film, but Leigh stubbornly persisted in his method of gathering actors and working with them to create the story. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked mostly in London theater and for the BBC, and then came “ High Hopes ” (1988), “Life Is Sweet", “Secrets and Lies,” which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, is a flowering of his technique. It moves us on a human level, it keeps us guessing during scenes as unpredictable as life (the visit, for example, of the former owner of the photography studio), and it shows us how ordinary people have a chance of somehow coping with their problems, which are rather ordinary, too.

One intriguing aspect of the film is the way Leigh handles race: The daughter is black, the mother is white, the family has no idea Cynthia had another child, and yet race is not really on anybody's mind in this film. They think they have more important things to worry about, and they're right.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Secrets and Lies (1996)

Rated R for language

144 minutes

Timothy Spall as Maurice

Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Hortense

Brenda Blethyn as Cynthia

Phyllis Logan as Monica

Claire Rushbrook as Roxanne

Lee Ross as Paul

Elizabeth Berrington as Jane

Written and Directed by

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Cast & crew
User reviews

Secrets & Lies

Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely white factory worker living in poverty in East Lo... Read all Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely white factory worker living in poverty in East London. Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely white factory worker living in poverty in East London.

Timothy Spall
Brenda Blethyn
Phyllis Logan
190 User reviews
63 Critic reviews
92 Metascore
36 wins & 47 nominations total

Hortense Cumberbatch

Social Worker

Girl with Scar

Hortense's Brother

Hortense's Sister-in-Law
Hortense's Nephew
Senior Optometrist
(as June Mitchell)
Junior Optician

Girl in Optician's
(as Keeley Flanders)
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia To add a spontaneous effect to the performances, Mike Leigh met with each actor individually and only told them what their character would know at the beginning of the film. As filming progressed the actors were hearing the secrets for the very first time.
Goofs When Roxanne pushes Cynthia onto the bed, the shadow of a crew member's head is seen moving on the bed.

Maurice : Secrets and lies! We're all in pain! Why can't we share our pain? I've spent my entire life trying to make people happy, and the three people I love the most in the world hate each other's guts, and I'm in the middle! I can't take it anymore!

Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Extreme Measures/Secrets & Lies/2 Days in the Valley/Caught/Ed's Next Move (1996)
Soundtracks Happy Birthday to You Words by Patty S. Hill & Mildred J. Hill (as Mildred Hill) © Keith Prowse Music Pub Co. Ltd./EMI Sung by the family at Roxanne's birthday party

User reviews 190

Mar 27, 2004
How long is Secrets & Lies? Powered by Alexa
Did Paul cause the accident that scarred the woman Maurice photographs?
February 28, 1997 (United States)
United Kingdom
Secretos y mentiras
Junction of Whitehouse Way and Hampden Way, Southgate, London, England, UK (Roxanne and Paul sit at the bus stop)
Channel Four Films
Thin Man Films
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$4,500,000 (estimated)
$13,417,292
Sep 29, 1996

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 16 minutes
Dolby Digital

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Secrets & Lies Reviews

Whether it be a contemporary or a period piece, Leigh once again provides a provocative portrait on a subject that can (dis)connect the family dynamics in any area.

Full Review | Mar 6, 2023

This is exactly the challenge taken up by Leigh: bring film back to its community calling and remember that, beyond the confusion of images and identities, there are... people with pasts, sufferings, things to say, families -- and we are all part of it.

Full Review | May 3, 2022

A benchmark for comedy dramas, this award-winning 1996 film is a bonafide masterpiece.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 4, 2022

Much of Secrets & Lies unfolds as if we're peeking around corners, watching Mike Leigh's characters struggle with personal, yet hidden, pain. Everyone in the film is hurting but unwilling to reach out to others in the family.

Full Review | Oct 12, 2021

a masterful dramedy about that wonderfully, terribly complex thing we call family

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 19, 2021

It's a beautifully performed British film which sensitively explores issues surrounding identity, race, roots and class.

Full Review | May 10, 2021

Secrets & Lies is a mesmerizing film, with the emotional stakes raised so high that each confrontation or revelation generates as much (or more) genuine suspense as anything found in Hollywood's latest thriller-of-the-week.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 3, 2021

There may not be a whole lot of plot to it, but what's there is emotionally engaging, and performed by a remarkable ensemble.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 29, 2021

Secrets and Lies is a beautifully constructed sentimental melodrama, with none of the rough edges that Mike Leigh has insisted on in the past.

Full Review | Nov 15, 2017

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 7, 2011

In the hands of another director, it would have been a sentimental melodrama, a soap opera, but with nuanced writing and sharp helming, Mike Leigh mixes humor and pathos in equal measure.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Mar 18, 2011

Much more than just a touching story of the ties that bind humanity and the way we reveal ourselves, "Secrets and Lies" (1996) is a staggering work of cinematic genius. It is truly a perfect film.

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Sep 2, 2009

It's hard to argue against it being a sharply observant and deeply felt melodrama, one that is accessible, contemporary and frightingly realistic.

Full Review | Original Score: A | May 7, 2006

Leigh's script and direction pushes all the right emotional buttons without getting overly melodramatic.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 14, 2005

Leigh's film stops short of catharsis, providing the potential for the characters' rebuilding of their relationships without suggesting that such projects are simple or immediate.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2005

Secrets & Lies is littered with scenes that begin at a fever pitch before descending into a becalmed, meditative state.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 19, 2005

The characters are so painfully real it's more like watching a documentary than a made-up story.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 1, 2004

An English mother-daughter racial melodrama that resonates with simplicity and insight. Leigh is considerate of his movie's identity and spirit just as much as demonstrates this with his wounded protagonists

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 26, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 12, 2004

His characters look normal, act normal, chatter, and scream. And even when they choose not to speak, not to give away secrets, they're still heard.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 13, 2003

Life & style
Environment

Secrets and Lies

Secrets and Lies (United Kingdom/France, 1996)

By wedding comedy with tragedy in intricate, realistic unions, Mike Leigh has become one of the foremost film making voices for the British working class. Yet, even though his movies bring a certain social viewpoint to the screen, this in no way limits the universality of Leigh's themes. Secrets and Lies , 1996's Palme D'Or winner at Cannes, represents the director at his best -- unsentimental yet powerful, funny and poignant, and, in the end, undeniably satisfying.

The film will resonate with anyone who has ever hidden a secret or told a lie (that should cover everyone). This isn't overblown melodrama; rather, it's the kind of starkly believable tale that could happen to anyone. Nothing in Secrets and Lies demands even a momentary suspension of disbelief. In fact, the film works best for those who approach it as a reflection of life. We can all relate to the issues being raised -- simple truths like adoption, infertility, and mother/daughter friction.

Secrets and Lies opens with a funeral, then quickly switches to a wedding. During the former ceremony, Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a 27-year old black optometrist, is burying her mother. In the next scene, we meet Maurice (Timothy Spall), a 38-year old white photographer who's taking pictures of a nervous bride. It takes nearly the entire movie before these two characters come face-to-face, but that happens during that meeting represents the climax of Leigh's beautifully-realized film. Hortense and Maurice are crucial to unraveling the entire sequence of secrets and lies.

Hortense was adopted. She has known this since she was seven years old, but it's not until both of her parents are dead that she feels compelled to seek out her birth mother. Despite being warned by a social worker to anticipate unpleasantness or disappointment, Hortense is shocked to learn that her mother is white. Her name is Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), and she's a 42-year old neurotic living in a dark, gloomy rowhouse with her 21-year old daughter, Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook). Cynthia is disliked by just about everyone who knows her, except perhaps her brother, Maurice. Even Maurice's wife, Monica (Phyllis Logan), hates the idea of spending a day in Cynthia's company.

Secrets and Lies chronicles Hortense's initial approach to Cynthia, their first meeting, and the development of a tentative bond. Each offers something unique to the other: Cynthia has lost her "real" daughter's love and respect, and is desperate to find a surrogate -- who better than the grown-up child she once gave away? Hortense, on the other hand, feels rootless now that the two people who brought her up are dead, and, while she doesn't look to Cynthia for parenting, she is curious about, and, ultimately, sympathetic with the disappointments that have defined her biological mother's life. There are no recriminations, at least not on Hortense's part. Any guilt that Cynthia feels is entirely of her own creation.

Leigh develops the story slowly, introducing us to each character, and, through actions and dialogue, allowing us to learn about their lives. We are not force-fed facts and details. There are no flashbacks nor is there a voiceover narration. The film's almost-documentary quality is belied only by the care and thought put into each camera shot. From beginning to end, Secrets and Lies is exceptionally well thought-out.

Emotional impact is crucial to the movie's success. Leigh employs a number of single-camera, unedited shots to facilitate dramatic development by letting the depth of emotions play out on screen. (How many movies cut away when things get too heavy?) One such sequence is the first meeting between Hortense and Cynthia. It's an incredible scene, with these two sitting side-by-side in a restaurant booth, trying to reconcile the past with the present, and groping for words to express what they're feeling. This is all accomplished in one shot, with no cuts or edits. A similar approach is used for their third meeting, and during a cookout near the end.

Brenda Blethyn won the Cannes Best Actress award for her daring, emotionally naked portrayal of Cynthia, and, while she's excellent, it's hard to single out any individual in this ensemble cast. These actors aren't just good, they're superlative. Leigh has a history of getting the most out of his performers (look at David Thewlis in Naked ), and, if Secrets and Lies is anything to judge by, it's a well-deserved reputation. This is the kind of film that is made or broken by actors, and there's not a false note to be found in any of the performances.

With Secrets and Lies , Leigh has surpassed his considerable achievements in Life is Sweet and Naked . This film exhibits the kind of breathtaking power that can be unearthed in a simple story. There's no sensationalism -- Leigh has ignored stereotypes in carefully developing the situation (wealthy black professional; underprivileged, uneducated whites) to dispel racial tension. This allows the dysfunctional family dynamics to be the sole focus. Maurice sums up Leigh's most pressing theme when he laments, "Secrets and lies...We're all in pain! Why can't we share our pain?" What the director has accomplished with this picture is to fashion an amazingly-textured story that grips us with unexpected force on the first viewing, and is sure to reveal a new aspect each time we come back. Without a doubt, Secrets and Lies is worth more than one trip to the theater.

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Criterion Review: SECRETS & LIES (1996)

Mike leigh’s palme d’or-winner is riveting as ever on a long-awaited criterion blu-ray.

The release of a new Mike Leigh film is always a cause for celebration, as are the eventual rediscoveries of his work by The Criterion Collection. With five films to date in the Collection spanning his five-decade career, Leigh’s collaborations with Criterion has proven to be as fruitful as those he shares with his actors during these films’ creation. Secrets & Lies , Leigh’s Palme d’Or-winning drama focused on the consequences of a revealed parentage to a group of interconnected suburban Londoners, is perhaps the best in Leigh’s filmography–and comes to Criterion with a diverse and insightful package after many years out of print.

After the death of her adoptive mother, Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) decides to take the plunge and officially unseal her records to try and reconnect with her birth mother. Neither Hortense or her mother Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) are prepared for who they might meet. Hortense is middle class with a thriving, jovial optometry career; Cynthia is an Eastender living in poverty with her daughter Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook), isolated from her more successful brother Maurice (Timothy Spall). What’s more — Hortense is Black, while Cynthia is white. Hortense and Cynthia’s reappearance in each others’ lives is initially traumatic, bringing up long-buried memories for Cynthia while Hortense bears the weight of her ensuing emotional outbursts. But Cynthia’s fear and trepidation slowly gives way to an affection that’s both maternal and platonic — and before too long, the two are enjoying nights on the town together. Hortense, still going through her own grieving process for the woman who chose to raise her, finds solace in reconnecting with the woman who chose not to do the same. But Cynthia’s new vivaciousness raises eyebrows with much of her already-fractured family — who she’s never told about Hortense’s existence, let alone her sudden re-emergence. Before too long, Cynthia begins to withdraw from Hortense, knowing that at some point, these long-buried Secrets & Lies must give way to the truth.

I first saw Secrets & Lies as part of my semi-retired Catching Up with the Classics series, as my last Letterboxd-based review before I began to write for Cinapse full-time. On that first viewing, I marveled at how Leigh’s process of improvisation and collaboration with his actors led to unparalleled glimpses at real human drama — from the blink-and-you’ll-miss-them character snapshots in Maurice’s photography studio to the powerhouse acting showcases of unbroken takes at some of the film’s climactic moments, especially the scene between Blethyn and Jean-Baptiste where Cynthia remembers the circumstances of Hortense’s conception — which lends this edition its cover image.

Revisiting this film in what’s hopefully the waning months of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s remarkable just how prescient Leigh is in his observations of human behavior. The characters of Secrets & Lies manage just as well to be isolated and disconnected from each other, often in self-imposed prisons of their own design. Cynthia and Maurice, despite having raised each other as children after the death of their own parents, can never bring themselves to call the other to check in or lend a friendly ear. Maurice is trapped with his wife Monica, where they retreat into the re-decoration of their empty six-bedroom home or another bottle of wine rather than discuss their increasingly tense relationship. On the opposite end, Cynthia vents endlessly about her problems to Roxanne, who’d rather stew in either misery or muted happiness rather than stagnate in complaining about her own past mistakes. Even Hortense spends much of Secrets & Lies ’ first half on the precipice of contacting Cynthia, stopping herself short before she can make that furtive connection. At times, it feels like such an act may be a betrayal towards her now-deceased adoptive parents, to say nothing of the upheaval Hortense is already in sorting through the detritus of what belongings remain in their wake. Hortense is also fully aware of the trauma such outreach might bring with it, thanks to an amazingly tender scene featuring a one-scene performance by Leigh veteran Lesley Manville’s social worker. But Hortense’s bravery in reconnecting with Cynthia doesn’t just bring about much of the film’s more positive (if secretive) changes — it reveals the fierce social magnetism that belies much of Leigh’s beautifully flawed characters throughout his filmography.

Secrets & Lies is constructed in small, snapshot-like scenes with his characters in small isolated fragments. Even though the scenes are often full of people, sometimes captured from a distance amid real London street life, Leigh and cinematographer Dick Pope’s eyes are laser-focused on the actors within them — reducing everything else to a living, always roving sea of bodies. The effect turns each of Leigh’s scenes into small pockets of humanity, just one blip of joy or sadness among hundreds of equal parallel narratives that are abuzz at any moment. Each of these characters shares their own want to connect — Hortense to Cynthia, Cynthia to Maurice, Maurice to the women he cares about most — but often find mundane reasons to stay isolated. Over Secrets & Lies ’ runtime, though, more and more of Leigh’s characters find ways to intrude on these little moments of drama — often despite the characters’ own best efforts to keep their actions hidden from everyone else. It’s as if the secrets they keep from each other have a consequential magnetism of their own that naturally seek out their own resolution — which in turn spurs the act of connection that the characters both crave and dread in equal measure. It’s a brilliant and bizarre dance to see play out over Secrets & Lies , and builds to a climax that’s as heart-wrenching as it is cathartic.

While a roundtable retrospective is understandably tempting to imagine in a COVID-less alternate universe, Criterion’s disc and transfer of Secrets & Lies more than matches the film’s revered reputation.

VIDEO/AUDIO

Criterion presents Secrets & Lies in a 1080p HD transfer in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, sourced from a new 2K restoration performed by MK2 and supervised by director Mike Leigh and cinematographer Dick Pope. The restoration is accompanied by a 2.0 surround English audio track, remastered from a 35mm magnetic track. English SDH subtitles are provided for the feature film, but not the supplements.

Long out-of-print in the U.S. until this edition, Secrets & Lies looks remarkable in this new transfer. Bright hues and sharp contrasts, creating a naturalistic look throughout rich with detail. Of note are the actors’ eyes catching nearby light as they either avoid or fish for each other’s glances, as well as the varied fabrics of their lived-in, individualized costumes. There’s a healthy amount of film grain, but at a level that doesn’t distract from the picture overall. The audio track is also nicely mixed for a stereo track, expectedly prizing Leigh’s dialogue amongst a soundscape of city and suburban domestic buzz.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Mike Leigh (2020 Interview): In a Zoom conversation with regular Leigh composer Gary Yershon, Leigh discusses the origins of Secrets & Lies major themes, the focus on the characters’ vocations and how they express the characters’ inner lives, an insightful clarity towards how Leigh’s improvisational process (and key withholding of information from his actors therein) led to the development of the film’s most revelatory (yet still scripted) sequences, and how the more fragmented, isolated segments of the film are carefully designed to inform the story’s greater thematic tapestry.
Mike Leigh (1996 Interview): In a feature-length phone interview with film critic Michel Ciment, Leigh explores further origins of the creation of the film’s characters, his recurrent themes (especially in the context of a follow-up to Naked), and his organic relationship between himself, his actors, and their stories.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste: In a Zoom conversation with film critic Corrina Antrobus, Jean-Baptiste discusses the legacy of Secrets & Lies , how Hortense’s position on the periphery of the Purleys’ family life creates rich opportunities to illuminate both groups of characters, the creation from the ground-up of Hortense, and the unpredictable nature of figuring out what elements of the Leigh rehearsal process may make their way into the final cut of a film.
Trailer for Secrets & Lies ’ theatrical release.
Booklet featuring an essay by Criterion Collection Curatorial Director Ashley Clark. Clark’s essay, Seen and Not Seen, explores the film’s themes of vision and perception, Leigh’s skill at efficient character development, the initial controversy of the film’s treatment of race, a reflection on the opportunities seized and missed when it comes to Secrets & Lies ’ depiction of Black British life, as well as an examination of the film’s enduring resonance.

Secrets & Lies is now available on Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of The Criterion Collection.

Get it at Amazon: If you enjoy reading Cinapse, purchasing items through our affiliate links can tip us with a small commission at no additional cost to you.

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Secrets & lies, common sense media reviewers.

British dysfunctional family dramedy has strong language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

How sharing your emotions and opening up about dam

Photographer Maurice has deep affection for his dy

There is a good gender balance among the cast, whi

An adult daughter pushes her mother. A character d

A couple are seen kissing and stripping off on a b

Language used includes "f---ing," "arse," "bloody,

A chain of British movie theaters is clearly ident

Characters smoke cigarettes, especially when under

Positive Messages

How sharing your emotions and opening up about damaging secrets can improve your life and family relations. Showing courage to deal with difficult situations.

Positive Role Models

Photographer Maurice has deep affection for his dysfunctional family. He wants everyone to be happy and gets closer to achieving this when he learns the importance of sharing his emotions and being honest. When challenged, he stands up for himself. Cynthia is at first shown to be neurotic and self-centered. But when she expands her horizons, her happiness improves. She has overcome the challenges of bringing up her daughter alone and is shown to care about others. Hortense is an adopted woman of color who pursues her birth mother, only to find out she's a White woman. She is kind and characters praise her for her courage in meeting her new family.

Diverse Representations

There is a good gender balance among the cast, which includes characters of different ethnicities and race. A woman of color is a successful optometrist and is depicted with no weight to her race but with some matter of fact discussions of her family's culture. A White middle-class woman that is dismissing of a woman of color is clearly shown to be prejudice and in the wrong. People from a variety of social classes are all depicted as having their own problems and issues.

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Violence & Scariness

An adult daughter pushes her mother. A character decides to look for their birth mother after the death of their adoptive parents.

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Sex, Romance & Nudity

A couple are seen kissing and stripping off on a bed. Sex is implied but no nudity or graphic behavior is shown. Sex is discussed including the use of contraception and "one-night stands."

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Language used includes "f---ing," "arse," "bloody," "balls," "bitch," "s--t," "bollocks," "bugger," and the British slang term "tosser."

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Products & Purchases

A chain of British movie theaters is clearly identifiable as is the logo of a well-known brand of beer.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters smoke cigarettes, especially when under stress, and drink on occasion.

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Secrets & Lies is a BAFTA-winning, darkly comic British family drama with themes of adoption and grief, as well as some strong language. The acclaimed movie carries a positive message of sharing emotions and feelings among family. Almost all the main characters are kind at heart. While some are adrift emotionally, together they learn to improve their situations. The main story revolves around Hortense ( Marianne Jean-Baptiste ), an adopted woman of colour, finding out her birth mother -- played by Brenda Blethyn -- is White and attempting to form a relationship with her. The movie is a drama with comedic moments and features strong language, including "f--k," "s--t," "bollocks," and British slang such as "tosser." Cigarettes are a go-to for stress relief for some characters and others drink wine. There is some talk of sex and contraception, and in one scene a couple kiss and strip on a bed with the implication being they have sex. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In SECRETS & LIES, Hortense ( Marianne Jean-Baptiste ), an adopted woman of color, decides to seek out her birth mother. To her surprise, Hortense discovers her birth mother is a White woman with a complicated past and a dysfunctional family.

Is It Any Good?

A benchmark for comedy dramas, this award-winning 1996 film is a bonafide masterpiece. For Secrets & Lies , writer-director Mike Leigh took the 1960s British gritty kitchen sink drama and updated it with laughs and heart, the legacy of which can be seen in all good comedic dramas that followed. This slice of life movie is brimming with just that: life. Its characters are flawed, sometimes absurd, but utterly believable, with every cast member making the screen sizzle. The performances and direction are so good that small-scale set pieces, such as a suburban barbecue, become movie masterclasses.

Despite some difficult themes, including the loss of parents, its message is ultimately hopeful, with growth and warmth underpinning it all. Add to that a never better Brenda Blethyn as factory worker Cynthia, who is reunited with the daughter she gave up for adoption decades ago. The story is drip-fed by Leigh, with the audience having to wait for key revelations that explain behaviors, reactions, and relationships. This never feels unfair though. Instead we lean in, enjoy the company and cringe, laugh, cry, and love along the way.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the strong language used in Secrets & Lies . Did it seem necessary or excessive? Was it needed to make the story more realistic?

Which characters did you most sympathize with? Would you consider any of them role models ? How did Hortense demonstrate courage ? Why is that such an important character strength to have?

How did the movie portray adoption? Was it handled sensitively? Did it affect Cynthia's life or how Hortense felt about her when they met? Do you know anyone who was adopted, or perhaps you were adopted yourself? How did this portrayal compare?

Movie Details

In theaters : September 27, 1996
On DVD or streaming : February 1, 2005
Cast : Brenda Blethyn , Timothy Spall , Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Director : Mike Leigh
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
Studio : October Films
Genre : Comedy
Character Strengths : Communication , Courage
Run time : 136 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : language
Award : BAFTA
Last updated : February 28, 2022

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Secrets And Lies Review

24 May 1996

140 minutes

Secrets And Lies

Many who saw Mike Leigh's last film, Naked, would have stumbled out into the street in shock. With this, Leigh returns to the familiar hearth of bittersweet suburban comedy, Life Is Sweet and Timothy Spall. The result is hilarious, as touching a film as any Leigh has made.

This is the story of people who were once connected by birth but are currently, for a variety of reasons, estranged. Maurice (Spall) is a decent, well-meaning portrait photographer who has worked hard to provide his fastidious wife Monica (Logan) with a large, comfortable home. For all their gadgets and accoutrements, they badly want children.

In their upward climb, they have neglected Maurice's older sister Cynthia (Blethyn), a dowdy, pinched-faced worrier who is stuck in her cluttered terraced house with an outrageously moody 21-year-old daughter Roxanne (newcomer Claire Rushbrook).

As Maurice and Monica choose from a scintillating range of pre-cooked freezer fare, Cynthia and Roxanne spend their evenings smoking fags and scowling bitterly at their fate.

Meanwhile, oblivious to them all, an adopted young black woman, Hortense (the brilliant Marianne Jean-Baptiste), is scouring London for her real mother - who, she learns to her shock, is white. The convergence of these five characters is gradual, beset by hitches, red herrings and more questions than answers.

The last-reel pathos of Life Is Sweet is present here from the start; the cringe-inducing social gatherings - a Leigh speciality - are worthy of his hands-over-eyes classic Bleak Moments. Belly-laughs are frequent, as are some terrific running gags (Spall's "relaxing" spiel to his customers; Roxanne's awesomely seedy boyfriend played to perfection by Lee Ross).

Flush with superb dialogue and interesting sub-plots, this uses every minute of its lengthy running time to surprise and to balance Blethyn's poignant, close-to-tears performance against those of the loveable Spall and the coolly troubled Logan. It is one of the most ambivalent and riveting comedy-dramas of recent times.

Movies | 05 09 2016

Secrets & Lies

Blu-ray edition reviewed by Chris Galloway
March 30 2021

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Writer-director Mike Leigh reached new levels of expressive power and intricacy in his ongoing contemplation of unembellished humanity with this resonant exploration of the deceptions, small and large, that shape our relationships to those we love. When Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a Black optometrist who was adopted as a child, begins the search for her birth mother, she doesn’t expect that it will lead her to Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn, winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s best actress award), a desperately lonely white factory worker whose tentative embrace of her long-lost daughter sends shock waves through the rest of her already fragile family. Born from a painstaking process of rehearsal and improvisation with a powerhouse ensemble cast, Secrets & Lies is a Palme d’Or–winning tour de force of sustained tension and catharsis that lays bare the emotional fault lines running beneath the surface of everyday lives.

Picture 8/10

Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies gets a new Blu-ray edition from The Criterion Collection, presenting the film in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on a dual-layer disc. The 1080p/24hz high-definition encode is sourced from a new 2K restoration, which in turn comes from a scan of the 35mm original negative.

Though I can’t say anything sticks out about the presentation, good or bad, it is a lovely looking one in the end. The restoration has cleaned things up nicely, with no serious flaws popping up (nor minor ones for that matter) and details look sharp and clean. The film is encoded nicely, and grain is rendered cleanly. No digital artifacts of note pop up.

There is a warm, green-ish hue to the picture, though I didn’t find it overbearing in anyway; it’s there but doesn’t impact black levels and whites still have a white look . I can’t recall how the film looked on previous home video releases, but the look does suit the general mood of the film so I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it is indeed intentional. Whatever the case on that latter point, the image still looks clean with a sharp photographic look and I was more than pleased with it.

The disc includes a DTS-HD MA 2.0 surround soundtrack. The film is dialogue heavy, of which sticks to the fronts, and it sounds clear and sharp. Music only pops up during transitions (as I recall anyways), but it ends up filling out the environment nicely, and street effects and such are also spread out. It’s not an overly showy mix by any means, but it’s sharp, clean, clear, and effective.

Extras 7/10

Criterion throws in a few supplements for this release, and though it may not look like much the material does an incredible job digging into the film's making.

From the archives Criterion digs up a 1996 audio-interview between Leigh and film critic Michel Ciment . Running 88-minutes and playing over a still from the film, the two talk about the development of the film and its characters, Leigh even referencing a number of his other films for comparison ( Life is Sweet and Naked coming up most), while also touching on the research he puts into his work. He explains why he chose for the film to focus on the one family and not delve more into the Hortense’s family, goes over the reasoning behind subplots that aren’t directly related to the driving story, and even talks about why he was against the film’s title. It’s lengthy, and the audio can be hard to hear in spots, but it offers an incredibly extensive look into Leigh’s creative process.

Criterion then includes two new interview segments, both over Zoom, the first between Leigh and composer Gary Yershon , the second between actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste and film critic Corrina Antrobus . Both reflect on the making of the film, though from fairly different perspectives. Leigh touches on similar topics touched on in the Ciment interview, though expands on the research he did around the film and then the two additional storylines (the woman with the scar and the previous owner of the photography shop), explaining how the financiers wanted those subplots cut. Interestingly, they also wanted the scenes between Hortense and her friend cut, but Leigh fought hard to keep all of these sequences in. Both interviews also touch on the improvisations and rehearsals that helped to develop the characters and story (amusingly, Brenda Blethyn and Jean-Baptiste hadn’t met before improvising their first meeting), along with the film’s success, while Jean-Baptiste shares additional details around her character that didn’t make it into the film. Both are terrific reflections, running less than 30-minutes each.

The disc then closes with the film’s trailer and the included insert features an essay on the film, written by Ashley Clark, looking at in relation to Leigh’s other work and how it handles Hortense’s experience. It makes up for the lack of other academic material though an interview of some sort would have been beneficial.

Not stacked in the end (somewhat of a surprise considering its success) but the interviews delve deeply into everything that went into developing the story and characters.

The disc sports a nice-looking presentation while its features exhaustively covering the film’s development and Mike Leigh’s creative process.

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Film Reference
Films Se-Sno
Secrets and Lies - Film (Movie) Plot and Review

Secrets And Lies - Film (Movie) Plot and Review

Director: Mike Leigh

Production: Film Four (UK), CiBy 2000 (France), Thin Man Films; color (Metrocolor), 35mm; running time: 141 minutes. Released 23 April 1996 (Cannes Film Festival), 24 May 1996, United Kingdom. Filmed on location in London, England. Budget: $4.5 million (US).

Producer: Simon Channing-Williams; screenplay: Mike Leigh; photography: Dick Pope; editor: Jon Gregory; production design: Alison Chitty; original music: Andrew Dickson.

Cast: Timothy Spall ( Maurice Purley ); Brenda Blethyn ( Cynthia Rose Purley ); Phyllis Logan ( Monica Purley ); Marianne Jean-Baptiste ( Hortense Cumberbatch ); Claire Rushbrook ( Roxanne Purley ); Elizabeth Berrington ( Jane ); Michele Austin ( Dionne ); Lee Ross ( Paul ).

Awards: Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or (Mike Leigh) and Award for Best Actress (Brenda Blethyn), 1996; Cameraimage Golden Frog Award (Dick Pope), 1996; Los Angeles Film Critics' Association (LAFCA) Awards for Best Actress (Brenda Blethyn), Best Director (Mike Leigh), and Best Picture, 1996; Australian Film Institute Best Foreign Film Award (Simon Channing-Williams), 1997; British Academy Awards (BAFTA) Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film (Simon Channing-Williams), BAFTA Film Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Brenda Blethyn), and Best Screenplay—Original (Mike Leigh), 1997; Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture—Drama (Brenda Blethyn), 1997; Golden Satellite Award for Best Director of a Motion Picture (Mike Leigh), Best Motion Picture—Drama (Simon Channing-Williams), and Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture (Brenda Blethyn), 1997; Humanitas Prize (U.S.) in the Feature Film Category (Mike Leigh) 1997; Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film (Mike Leigh), 1997; London Critics' Circle ALFS Awards for British Actress of the Year (Brenda Blethyn), British Director of the Year (Mike Leigh), and British Film of the Year, 1996–97.

Publications

Leigh, Mike, Secrets and Lies , London, 1997.

Cavanagh, David, review in Empire (London), June 1996.

Jones, Alan, review in Film Review (London), June 1996.

Ansen, David, review in Newsweek (New York), 30 September 1996.

Corliss, Richard, "Family Values," in Time (New York), 30 September 1996.

Quart, Leonard, "Raising Questions and Positing Possibilities: an Interview with Mike Leigh," in Cineaste (New York), vol. 22, no. 4, 1997.

Best known for his bleak take on life in the suburbs, in Secrets and Lies Mike Leigh surprised many critics with a happy, perhaps rather sentimental ending. Besides its general point about our ability to hide our feelings even from those we love most, the film also confronts head-on an issue that remains pertinent in Britain; namely the extent to which British society is a multiethnic, multicultural one. It tells the story of Hortense, a young, black optometrist looking for her biological parents. To her surprise, her mother turns out to be a poorly educated white factory worker, living with her daughter from another relationship. Unmarried and pregnant at a young age, Cynthia was shamed into giving up her black baby at birth, and at first denies their relationship.

At their first meetings Brenda Blethyn (Cynthia) and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hortense) play the parts of damaged naif and young sophisticate with a rawness that has become a hallmark of Leigh's filmmaking. Constructing the script through extensive improvisation sessions with the cast, he manages to draw from his actors a level of commitment and realism in their roles that is seldom achieved by other directors. In the case of Secrets and Lies , the two female leads were kept apart until it was necessary to film their on-screen meeting, so that the first meeting of the characters was also the first meeting of the actors. Between them the two women produce the most extraordinary moments in the film, such as one awkward eight-minute scene, produced in a single take, in which the pair talk in a restaurant and the bond between them grows despite their different experiences of life.

Secrets and Lies , like Leigh's other films, champions people whose ambitions are simple and honest over those who pretend sophistication and social superiority. Leigh is well known for revealing in his films the dignity and extraordinary resilience of people whose lives seem mundane and uninteresting. Leigh's fascination with the difference between the way things are and the way they appear is embodied in Secrets and Lies in the professions of Cynthia's brother, Maurice, and her newly discovered daughter. As a professional portrait photographer, Maurice's skill with lenses involves creating illusions about his subjects. At one point, for example, he takes a photograph of a woman with a facial disfigurement, cleverly disguising her face to make her look conventionally beautiful. The art of illusion continues in his own life: Maurice and his unhappy, childless wife, Monica, live in a big house, hiding their misery behind expensive furnishings. In contrast, as an optometrist, Hortense is dedicated to improving the vision of her clients, enabling them to see the world more clearly. Through her relationship with Cynthia, Hortense helps the family to see the truth about themselves and each other.

—Chris Routledge

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“Secrets and Lies” (1996) Movie Review; Women in Film

Ever since Patricia Arquette gave her acceptance speech for Best Actress at the 2015 Academy Awards, calling for wage equality for women, it has been shaping up to be the Year of Women in film. Joss Whedon recently got caught (probably unfairly) in the crosshairs of the feminist debate, being accused of making Scarlett Johansson’s character, Black Widow, in The Avengers: Age of Ultron significant only in how she relates to a man. Mad Max: Fury Road, on the other hand, has been lauded for being a female-centric action film.

There has certainly been a push in recent film criticism for more films that explore the world from a woman’s point of view. As a young man with two brothers, this was not the sort of thing I cared about. But, now as a father of two daughters who challenge my thinking, this intrigues me. Are the movies my daughters watch giving them a picture of women who are fully human, and who have friendships with other women? Or are they only seeing women who exist in relationship to a male hero, or worse, are only important if they are beautiful or sexy? When I go back to the movies I grew up with, I realize just how many of them are centered on a male character and a male point of view. This may be because most directors (about 93%) and screenwriters are male, but also because box office demographics show that movies made for males 10-25 make the most money (and what studio doesn’t want to make money?). Just as I have to be honest in acknowledging that I have been slow to realize my white privilege, I also probably need to acknowledge that I have been slow to realize my male privilege in media, how most pop culture has been aimed at people just like me.

In 1986, Liz Wallace and Alison Bechdel unwittingly invented the ‘Bechdel Test.’ This test has three rules:

1. The movie has to have at least two women in it.

2. who talk to each other.

3. about something besides a man.

This doesn’t seem like such a hard test, but it is kind of shocking to realize how few movies can actually pass this test (half of the top-grossing films of 2013 fail the test). And, while the test is certainly limited, the good news is that the role of women in film is not an entirely new concern. In 1996, the British director Mike Leigh wrote and directed a film called Secrets and Lies that passes the Bechdel Test, with a ton of room to spare.

Secrets and Lies is about a successful woman named Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) who decides to search for her birth mother. Hortense, who is black, is surprised to find that her mother, Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), is not only white, but also lower class and a bit of a mess. The scene where they meet for the first time is a master class in acting, as we watch Cynthia go through a whole range of emotions in an 8 minute uncut scene. The two women must overcome their fears to get to know one another and to face friends and family with some uncomfortable truths.

One of the things that strikes me about Leigh’s film is that he doesn’t just flesh out the two main characters. He loves all of his characters. Timothy Spall and Phyllis Logan play Cynthia’s brother and sister-in-law and are sympathetic and well-drawn as two people in the midst of a tough marriage and family situation. Spall’s character, Maurice, is a photographer and is constantly observant and sympathetic towards other people, while Jean-Baptiste’s Hortense is an optometrist who, as a black professional and outsider to Cynthia’s family, must always be aware of how other people view her.

The rich characterization Leigh achieves in Secrets and Lies is not a fluke, as another one of his masterpieces, Another Year (2010), matches the level of character depth, making us understand and sympathize with all kinds of people (albeit all British). One of the criticisms of Leigh’s work is that his characters don’t do much, they talk and interact, but the plots of his films don’t evolve (possibly due to the way that he works, writing bare screenplays and having the actors rehearse for months to inhabit their characters and improvise their own dialogue). That criticism does not hold up for Secrets and Lies, a film that develops its themes and its characters. Its running time is a bit long, but would be a great film to show young women to expose them to fully-drawn women and to discuss family dynamics.

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Secrets & Lies

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

If you want to find a real auteur, track down Mike Leigh, shown above in an exultant moment after winning the Palm d’Or at Cannes for Secrets and Lies. Leigh is best known in his native England, where his character-driven plays, TV films and features (High Hopes, Life Is Sweet , Naked) won him an Order of the British Empire title, in 1993. In America, the shy, secretive Brit (he builds his scripts after months of private improvisation with actors) is admired mostly by cultists. Look for Secrets and Lies, which opened the New York Film Festival, to blow his cover.

Transcendent and moving, not to mention blisteringly funny, Secrets and Lies is something very special indeed. At first glance, Leigh’s most accessible and heartfelt film sounds like a soap opera: Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) is a lonely, boozy, white-trash factory wage slave who takes a call from Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a stranger claiming to be the daughter Cynthia gave up at birth. They agree to meet at a cafe. Hortense, 27, is a dignified London optometrist. She is also black. Cynthia is unbelieving, ashamed. “It ain’t true, sweet’art,” she says, her cockney accent thick with panic as she launches into a crying jag that ends in a devastating realization of the truth.

Blethyn, who played Brad Pitt’s repressed mom in A River Runs Through It, inhabits this lovably disreputable character so totally that any qualms about reverse stereotyping soon fade. Her unerring performance ranks with the year’s finest. Blethyn took acting honors at Cannes and should be up for more prizes as the awards season heats up. She is an emotional whirlwind – brimming with bawdy humor, ready compassion and raw need.

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A high level of acting is a Leigh hallmark. Jean-Baptiste is a find. Her scenes with Blethyn cut to the bone as mother and daughter move from wariness to warmth. Conflict enters in the form of family. Cynthia has another daughter, Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook), a road sweeper who lives with her mother but rarely bothers to talk to her. Cynthia is also estranged from her younger brother, Maurice (Timothy Spall), a wedding photographer whose childless snob of a wife, Monica (Phyllis Logan), prefers to keep Cynthia at a distance. Spall, the eccentric restaurant owner in Leigh’s Life Is Sweet , gives a performance of amazing tenderness. Maurice loves and deeply misses his sister. He convinces his wife to allow a 21st-birthday party for Roxanne to be held in their new house. Cynthia, proud of her secret daughter, asks to bring Hortense along. Both agree to lie about Hortense’s identity – she’ll be introduced as a chum from the factory. The stage is set for a birthday party on a land mine.

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The writer and director handles the ensuing explosion of laughs, tears, rage and reconciliation with rare skill and immediacy. Leigh, a world-class filmmaker at the top of his form, has sometimes been accused of patronizing his working-stiff characters. But the pain of Maurice’s cry – “Why do the people I love most in the world hate each other’s guts?” – has a poignancy that hardly smacks of exploitation. At Cannes, Leigh said his award was “encouraging for those of us who are trying to make films about people, relationships, real life, love, passion, caring and all the things that matter.” Secrets and Lies matters.

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SECRETS AND LIES

What You Need To Know:

(B, H, LL, S, A, D, M) Biblical worldview promoting commitment & speaking the truth in love; 2 profanities & 10 obscenities; implied immorality involving couple on bed in undergarments & two occasions where condom use is discussed; alcohol use and abuse; smoking; and, woman on toilet applying a tampon and person vomiting into sink

More Detail:

SECRETS AND LIES tells the story of a young black woman named Hortance living on in London. Shortly after the death of her adoptive mother, she looks for her real mother and she finds a white, never married factory worker who lives with her daughter Roxanne. Her mother, Cynthia, at first refuses to recognize Hortance. Only Cynthia’s brother, Morris, knows of Hortance. However, Hortance, quickly befriends her mother. Simultaneously, brother Morris begins to feel guilty because he has neglected Cynthia. He has a very successful business and decides to invite his sister, Cynthia, and Roxanne over for Roxanne’s 21st birthday. Cynthia decides she will pass off Hortance as a co-worker from the factory. However, soon “the secret” gets out, resulting in emotional healing for the whole family.

The major theme of the movie states that all families have secrets and lies, and to persist in them does not get rid of them. When a biblical principal of speaking the truth is practiced, the result is wonderful. Not only does it talk about identity within a family, but it also addresses the question of race. Can we accept members of a different race into our own family? SECRET AND LIES suggests yes. Containing a few obscenities and some implied sexual immorality, it is a mostly moral look at commitment and speaking the truth in love.

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Secrets & lies.

: Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother.

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Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely, white factory worker living in poverty in East London.

Cast and Crew

Starring: Marianne Jean-Baptiste , Brenda Blethyn , Timothy Spall , Phyllis Logan , Dick Pope

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Review: Ryan Phillippe and Juliette Lewis Star in ‘Secrets and Lies’

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By Neil Genzlinger

Feb. 27, 2015

“Secrets and Lies,” the 10-episode thriller that begins Sunday night on ABC, gets points for style but not many for originality. It’s a crisply paced suburban potboiler with a murdered child at the center, and if you’ve been sucked in by other shows in this genre you may find yourself sucked in by this one. But also feel free to be vaguely annoyed that those clever TV makers are seducing you with formulas rather than freshness.

Ryan Phillippe is Ben Crawford, who is jogging in the dim light of early morning in the suburbs of Charlotte, N.C., when he finds the body of a young neighbor boy in the woods. You know what’s coming next: Ben himself is turned into the chief suspect by a relentless detective (Juliette Lewis), the news media goes crazy, and all sorts of subdivision secrets emerge. That Ben had a fight with his wife (KaDee Strickland) and had been blackout drunk the night before his fateful jog (who goes jogging in that condition?) are only the least of these scandalous tidbits.

It’s the “Broadchurch/Gracepoint” setup with a wrong-man trope thrown in. Ms. Lewis’s dour detective character, Andrea Cornell, is a cliché stretched beyond the point of believability; Ben hears variations of the phrase “We need you to come down to the station” so often that he ought to be filing a harassment complaint.

“Why does she keep wanting to talk to you?” his wife asks. Probably because she watched “Columbo.” Somehow, though, she picked up that character’s technique without acquiring any of his likability. The best TV detectives have a human side; through Sunday’s two-hour premiere, Cornell exhibits none.

The series, which is based on an Australian one, may have similarities to “Broadchurch” but doesn’t remotely aspire to that show’s depth; the unremarkable characters are all refugees from a daytime soap opera. Yet despite all that, viewers who like a certain amount of predictability in their mysteries could easily find themselves losing 10 hours to “Secrets and Lies.” Far more substantive shows are available on Sunday nights, of course, but maybe some people are just looking for a nontaxing way to pass the time until the summer beach reading hits the shelves.

Secrets and Lies

ABC, Sunday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.

Produced by ABC Studios. Developed by Barbie Kligman, based on the Australian series “Secrets & Lies,” created by Stephen Irwin; Ms. Kligman, Aaron Kaplan, Tracey Robertson, Nathan Mayfield, Timothy Busfield and Charles McDougall (pilot only), executive producers.

WITH: Ryan Phillippe (Ben Crawford), Juliette Lewis (Detective Andrea Cornell), KaDee Strickland (Christy Crawford), Natalie Martinez (Jess Murphy), Dan Fogler (Dave Lindsey), Indiana Evans (Natalie Crawford) and Belle Shouse (Abby Crawford).

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The True Story Behind Netflix’s Ashley Madison Docuseries

W hile Ashley Madison’s users may have a lot of secrets , the website itself, launched in 2001, was never secret about who it was targeting: married people who wanted to have an affair. In fact, its most viral tagline is “Life is Short. Have an Affair.”

Nearly a decade after a 2015 hack exposed personal information about millions of Ashley Madison ’s users, a new documentary series on Netflix, out May 15, reveals more about what was going on behind the scenes both at the company and in some of the victims’ families.

Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies, & Scandal features interviews with former members of the site, who appear on camera to talk about their experiences. They share what was going on in their lives that prompted them to join Ashley Madison , and what happened following the hack .

The victims of the Ashley Madison hack

Not everyone was using Ashley Madison in total secret. The first episode of the series features an interview with a couple, Rob and Stephanie, who say Ashley Madison actually helped their marriage, offering an avenue for each of them to explore their sexuality. While Rob's information was exposed in the hack he didn't face blowback in his relationship, because he was already in an open marriage. ( Sex, Lies, & Scandal was made without any cooperation from Ashley Madison.)

Rob says in the series that he is interested in dating younger, married women, while Stephanie is a dominatrix and is able to find men who will do sex acts that Rob is not interested in doing. She even gives viewers a tour of her collection of sex toys. They have two rules: Rob always wears a condom and they always tell each other who they are with, basically getting permission from one another to go out with someone else. “I consider myself one of the happiest married men that I know,” Rob says. Likewise, Stephanie loves that “he doesn’t lie to me,” and describes him as a great husband and father.

But many Ashley Madison users have joined the site without their spouses knowing. In the docu-series, Christian YouTube star Sam Rader talks about how he signed up for the site at a time when he became overwhelmed balancing work as an ER nurse in Texas, paying bills, and taking care of his first son. As Rader explains why he made an Ashley Madison account, “I didn’t want to leave my family but I wanted something exciting in my life.”

Soon after starting the account, he ended up finding new fulfillment in his marriage to his wife Nia and says he ignored the account for years. His career making YouTube videos as a family-loving Christian dad was taking off right when the 2015 hack happened. When he saw his name was posted on Twitter in association with the data breach , he immediately told Nia. In the series, she admits how she felt “betrayed’ and “infuriated,” but decided to forgive him immediately because he had not met with any women in person. “I need to accept he’s got some curiosities that I didn’t know about,” she says in the series.

Still from Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal

Many spouses affected by the hack were not as understanding as Nia. Countless marriages ended, and the series focuses on one New Orleans seminary teacher named John, who killed himself after his name was included in the leak.

In the series, John’s wife, Christi, talks about finding his body in their garage. Later, she learned that earlier in the day, John had resigned because the seminary where he taught found out he had an Ashley Madison account because of the hack.

She denounces the “witch hunt” of people who combed through the data breach and outed people like her husband, arguing, “I’m sure there are people who are angry about Ashley Madison, but I blame the secrecy, the cancer of shame that was eating away at him.”

What the Ashley Madison hack revealed

Many male Ashley Madison users who thought they were paying to send messages to real women were actually talking to bots or Ashley Madison employees. The series spotlights a former stripper and adult entertainer named Michelle “Bombshell” McGee, who famously claimed in 2010 that she had had an affair with Sandra Bullock ’s husband Jesse James.

While McGee had previously done some promotional work for Ashley Madison, and had an account on the site, she was not actively using it at the time of the hack in 2015. However, she shares, three different men showed up to her performances with gifts for her, believing they were in relationships with her based on conversations they thought they were having with her online. She says she told one man that she didn’t talk to anyone on the website and described his look of sheer terror, “like he was scammed.”

Michelle "Bombshell" McGee in Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal

Many of the fake profiles could be traced to an IP address at an Ashley Madison UK office. “We knew there were fake profiles on the site,” a former Ashley Madison customer service representative named Cathy says in the series. “It wasn’t a secret to us.”

She says staffers were told to fill out profiles with the physical traits male users liked the most. Evan Back, a former vice president of sales at Ashley Madison, explains that bots, powered by a form of artificial intelligence, started sending a message to male users when they realized they were usually too shy to reach out first.

Despite the 2015 hack, Ashley Madison still exists, boasting over 70 million users. In a post-script, the docu-series says Ruby Life, the owners of Ashley Madison, and former CEO Noel Biderman refused to comment on the claims made in the episodes. A spokesperson for Biderman said he’s a committed husband and father. Perhaps the series could save viewers’ marriages; if they find victims’ rationale for setting up accounts relatable, then they can be proactive or even seek counseling. As director Toby Paton says of the film, “There is something quite deep and universal that this touches on and speaks to.”

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‘The Apprentice’ Review: Donald Trump Movie Starring Sebastian Stan Plays Like a Tragic Frankenstein Tale

Cannes 2024: With Stan as a young Trump and Jeremy Strong as lawyer Roy Cohn, the film is amusing at times and disturbing at others

There’s not much in Ali Abbasi’s filmography to make you think that he’d want to make a movie about a young Donald Trump and his mentor Roy Cohn. But there’s a lot in the Iranian-born, Copenhagen-based filmmaker’s work to suggest that if he did make such a movie, it could be both fascinating and terrifying.

And in a way, “The Apprentice,” which premiered in the Main Competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, is both of those things. It’s a true-life horror story in some ways, and Abbasi approaches it as a Frankenstein tale in which the mad doctor creates a monster and then loses control of it. But after years of Trump imitations (and the real thing), it also can’t help but feel a little cartoonish, and maybe not the best use of the director’s particular talents.

Abbasi’s feature debut was a 2016 horror film about surrogacy; his second was the 2018 Cannes sensation “Border,” which drew screams and squeals with its scene of troll sex; and his third was the visceral drama “Holy Spider,” about a real-life case in which an Iranian serial killer who preyed on sex workers and was applauded by many in the conservative society.

To put that skill set – an uncompromising, often dark vision, a taste for horror and an outsider’s perspective – in the service of a film about the young would-be mogul and the conniving lawyer who taught him how to win at all costs wasn’t a sure thing by any means, but it was awfully intriguing.

And to call that film “The Apprentice,” swiping that title from the TV show that helped give Trump the profile to run for president, suggested a sense of humor that might be necessary to survive this particular project.

There’s humor in the film, mostly in the knowing chuckles elicited when a key moment of the Trump bio clicks into place: Here’s where Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) introduces Trump (Sebastian Stan) to Rupert Murdoch and says “he could really help you” … here’s a young Roger Stone showing Trump a Ronald Reagan campaign button that says, “Let’s Make American Great Again” … Here’s Cohn taking Trump clothes shopping and advising him on the kind of suits that will help hide his “big ass.”

These are the building blocks of the Trump we think we know, with the movie’s opening title card saying that the film is “based on real events” but also includes fictionalized elements. And make no mistake, if Trump and his supporters get any idea of what’s in “The Apprentice,” the cries of “fake news!” will be resounding, because this semi-biopic begins with mockery and ends with dread.

At the start of the film, which adopts a 1970s style for its shots of the New York City of that era, Trump is a guy who trudges door to door in a rundown apartment building (“Trump Village”) built by his father, collecting rent checks from struggling tenants who clearly don’t like him.

In New York City, meanwhile, Trump has been admitted to an exclusive private club, where he regales a date with descriptions of the powerful men who surround them. “Why are you so obsessed with these people?” she asks, and he offers a weak “I’m not obsessed, I’m just curious” defense that isn’t enough to keep her from heading to the powder room and then out the door.

From the next room in the club, an imperious lawyer Roy Cohn invites the poor guy to come sit at the table Cohn is sharing with a couple of mobster clients and some other people he deems unworthy of introduction. Everybody at the table laughs at Trump, with his timid manner and his order of ice water — but if the young Donald is essentially presented as a socially awkward, vaguely pathetic wannabe unable to get out from under a domineering father, Cohn sees something he likes in the little bit of empty bravado Trump can summon up.

“I like the kid,” he says at one point. “I feel sorry for him.”

Or maybe he sees something he can mold in the clueless waif with family money. Cohn, who was instrumental in sending convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair in the 1950s, spouts “America first” speeches that are echoed in Trump’s stump rhetoric to this day. And he offers his three rules for winning: “attack attack attack,” “admit nothing, deny everything” and “no matter what happens, claim victory and never admit defeat.”

Strong nails a certain blank, slack-jawed, morally vacant look that Cohn had, even if he’s hardly a dead ringer for the vicious fixer who dropped homophobic slurs and insisted until the end that he was dying of liver cancer rather than AIDS. Stan has a tougher job of it — because despite the makeup and hair, it’s impossible to compete with the real thing that has dominated media for the past decade.

The movie essentially shows Trump learning to lie, ineptly wooing his first wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova), building the Commodore Hotel and Trump Tower, making an ill-advised foray into Atlantic City and gulping diet pills to keep himself going. It’s the construction of the Trump persona, with help from the slimy advisor who has the keys to “winning.”

And it’d play like a tragedy if we didn’t know what happened after the movie ends. The movie has the feel of a rise-and-fall saga, with Trump growing increasingly unhinged and out of control — and with Stan increasingly adopting the vocal and physical mannerisms we see on social media and the news today. It’s most horrifying — and most Abbasi-like — in an extended scene that cuts between a memorial service for Cohn and Trump on the operating table getting liposuction and a scalp reduction, all set to the strains of “My Country Tis of Thee.”

That sequence might be the one that makes the most of Abbasi’s uncompromising gifts, and suggests that the director’s heart might be in a truly wild movie not quite so tethered to biographical details. “The Apprentice” is amusing at times and disturbing at others, but it’s hard not to think that Ali Abbasi could have done something weirder, wilder and more satisfying if he’d found a way to bring in more magic and less MAGA.

What is Ashley Madison? How to watch the new Netflix doc 'Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal'

Almost a decade has passed since the infamous Ashley Madison scandal that exposed the names and accounts of thousands of affair-seekers ; yet, interest in the whole lurid affair remains, according to Netflix.

The streaming service is set to release a new docuseries about the cheating website's 2015 data breach, which revealed the information of over 30 million users, and the aftermath this week called "Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal."

It is the second such documentary to have been released in the last year, following behind Hulu's July 2023 docuseries titled "The Ashley Madison Affair," which focused more on the website's founding , rise to popularity, downfall and eventual return.

While the 2015 leak brought disrepute to some prominent figures, including celebs and politicians, and led to the CEO's resignation, the site featuring the tagline "Life is short. Have an affair," continues to operate to this day. According to claims made in the Hulu doc, the service had 75 million members worldwide as of 2021.

The name Ashley Madison ringing a bell but you can't quite remember the juicy details? Wonder what all the hubbub was about in the first place? Here's what to know about the new Netflix doc, Ashley Madison and the scandal.

A disastrous hack, CEO's scandal: Revelations from 'The Ashley Madison Affair' Hulu docuseries

What is 'Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and & Scandal' about?

The new, three-part Netflix documentary series on Ashley Madison will be released exclusively to the streaming platform on May 15.

In the official Netflix summary, "Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal" is described as focusing on the 2015 data breach and its repercussions.

"When a dating site for people seeking adulterous affairs is hacked, millions of users' intimate data is exposed, wrecking marriages and destroying lives ," says the series' descriptor line.

In a blog shared by Netflix , the themes of the doc are described with a bit more detail:

...chronicles the rise, fall, and rebirth of a website that has had a profound effect on countless couples and families. Featuring interviews with former employees and clients, the documentary series presents an unflinching look at what happens when millions of secrets are exposed at once, told through the eyes of a group of people who experienced it firsthand — and many of them offer some surprising perspective."

The docuseries was produced by Minnow Films and is directed by Toby Paton, produced by Chris McLaughlin, and executive produced by Fiona Caldwell and Sophie Jones.

How to watch 'Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal' docuseries

"Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal" is a Netflix exclusive set to premiere on Wednesday, May 15. The limited series will feature three 50-minute episodes.

Netflix offers three membership options ranging from $6.99 a month to $22.99 a month. New users can also sign up for a free trial.

Watch the 'Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal' trailer

What is ashley madison.

Launched in 2001, Ashley Madison was something of a dating website aimed at people looking to have extramarital affairs. Meant to be a discreet platform for connecting married people hoping to step out, the model entailed male members paying for credits needed to message female members, who signed up for free.

CEO Noel Biderman was open about the website being a place for facilitating adultery and happily used shock campaigns to promote it, like an ad with a photo of Hillary Clinton accompanied by text saying “New adventures. Start with ... AshleyMadison.com"

Biderman worked on these campaigns with his wife but was later exposed as being unfaithful via an email hack. He resigned as CEO in August 2015 following the infamous Ashley Madison data leak.

What was the infamous Ashley Madison data breach?

In the summer of 2015, a hacker group calling themselves "The Impact Team" gained access to Ashley Madison's data and leaked stolen files containing the personal information of up to 37 million people.

In July, the hackers contacted Ashley Madison staff members with threats of releasing stolen user data if the website did not shut down and cease operations immediately. The personal information and names of 2,500 users were initially released to prove the validity of the threat, but the company denied that their website had security issues and refused to concede to the demands.

The hacking group made good on those threats a month later on August 18, publicly releasing more than 60 gigabytes of company data including user details. Some exposed users had previously paid the company to delete their personal information, but the leak exposed its failure to do so.

Ashley Madison celebrity list from 2015 breach

The catalog of exposed accounts was long - so long, in fact, that it was turned into a searchable list. Celebrities, influencers, politicians and other notable names were on the list mixed in with normal people.

Some, like the oldest Duggar child Josh Duggar, became associated with the leak and saw hits to their reputations. Duggar has since been arrested and sentenced to 12 1/2 years in jail for possessing child pornography , which was discovered after he did a stint in rehab following the Ashley Madison revelations.

Josh Duggar - A now infamous member of the ultra-conservative Christian Duggar family, best known for their TLC television show "19 Kids and Counting."
Hunter Biden - President Joe Biden's son was one of multiple politically connected people who were accused of (and denied) having an account
Sam Rader - A Christian family influencer known from the Sam and Nia YouTube channel that was popular in 2015.
Jionni LaValle - Husband of Nicole Polizzi, aka Snooki from "Jersey Shore." Both denied that he cheated.
Josh Taekman - A former Real Housewives of New York star who was married to Kristin Taekman.
Jeff Ashton - Is a former Florida State Attorney and was known as the lead prosecutor in the Casey Anthony case.
Jason Dorée - Was an executive director of the Republican Party of Louisiana at the time. According to Wired , 15,000 .gov or .mil email addresses were found in the leak. All of the American politicians implicated, including Dorée, denied any involvement with the site.
Michelle Thomson - The then-MP for Edinburgh West was one of multiple international government officials found on the site. She claimed someone had signed up using an old email without her knowledge.

How to watch "The Ashley Madison Affair"

While Netflix's series on the infamous website is new, Hulu put one out last summer called "The Ashley Madison Affair."

The three-part docuseries focuses on the origins and growth of the website and the narrative of unapologetic CEO Noel Biderman.

"The Ashley Madison Affair" is available for streaming on Hulu with a standard account.

Contributing: Erin Jensen , Aberdeen News

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Aaron eckhart & devon sawa traveling down ‘thieves highway’ – cannes, ‘three kilometers to the end of the world’ review: emanuel parvu’s drama an expansive tale of corruption and lies – cannes film festival .

By Stephanie Bunbury

Stephanie Bunbury

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Nothing in a small village, however, happens in isolation. The beating has points of connection with so many aspects of community life and its power brokers – the police chief on the brink of retirement, the local property king whose sons do the bashing and to whom Dragoi owes a sum of money he has no hope of pulling together, the priest whose authority derives from the faithful and the fearful – that Parvu’s film becomes something like an emotional map of the community.

RELATED: Cannes Film Festival Photos

Instead of roads and houses, it shows where friendship, mutual support and favors exchanged have rotted into the muck of corruption. Instead of landmarks, it shows the culture’s stress points. As the story progresses, Adi himself becomes the still center of a swirl of forces that act together – as they would have done in so many other circumstances — to ensure justice will never be done.

Parvu is careful to show the complexity of these people as well as of their weave of betrayals, mistakes and wrongdoing. Even Zentov (Richard Bovnoczki), to whom bribes and threats are everyday calling cards, lashes out hard only because he knows his sons face prison time. He wants to protect them, as he tells Dragoi; doesn’t he also want to protect his son? The local priest (Adrian Titieni), who presides over a scene of forced exorcism that is truly sickening, clearly believes his own justification for his petty authority: that he should be trusted in the same way people trust doctors.

The actors bring to these portraits the naturalistic ease combined with intensity that is a hallmark of Romanian New Wave cinema, each one a whole person with their own reasons. Zentov and his confederates may be villains, but not the kind who wear capes: It is villainy submerged in normality.

The story is set in the Danube delta, where sunsets are vast and it is possible to go anywhere else only by boat. A widescreen format leaves room to show this expanse of wetlands in all its glory; there is no music, but a constant susurration of wind in the trees and bushes, sometimes accompanied by the ripple of water in the reeds at the water’s edge, provides a perfect soundtrack, the rustling of leaves a calm presence that can also feel frenetic when amplified. Adi texts the boy he met at the disco – a text revealed when his father forces him to open up his phone – to say he feels as if he is suffocating. Yet this is a place, as Parvu shows us, where there should be so much room to breathe. If they could just look about them, they might all be free.

Title: Three Kilometers to the End of the World Festival: Cannes (Competition) Director-screenwriter: Emanuel Parvu Cast: Bogdan Dumitrache, Ciprian Chiujdea, Laura Vasily Sales agent: Memento Running time: 1 hr 45 min

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Paul schrader’s ‘oh, canada’ with richard gere, uma thurman draws 3-minute standing ovation.

The film reunites Schrader with his 'American Gigolo' star in a tale of mortality, secrets, and regret.

By Scott Roxborough , Scott Feinberg May 17, 2024 2:45pm

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Still of 'Oh Canada' with Richard Gere and Uma Thurman

Paul Schrader ‘s Oh, Canada , the new drama that reunites the director with his American Gigalo star Richard Gere , had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival Friday night, where it was welcomed with a three-minute-plus standing ovation for Schrader and his team at the Grand Lumiere Theatre. With typical Canadian politeness, the crowd even applauded the film’s producers.

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COMMENTS

Secrets and Lies movie review (1996)
Every camera setup, every closeup, the size and timing of every closeup, the editing of the whole, works to unfold the scene powerfully. Material enough for a season of soap opera is handled in several minutes and never seems forced or arbitrary. The tricky thing with many Leigh films is to process the comedy.
Secrets & Lies
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a successful black eye doctor, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to a lower-class white woman ...
Secrets and Lies movie review (1996)
Secrets & Lies. Moment after moment, scene after scene, "Secrets & Lies" unfolds with the fascination of eavesdropping. We are waiting to see what these people will do next, caught up in the fear and the hope that they will bring the whole fragile network of their lives crashing down in ruin. When they prevail--when common sense and good ...
Secrets & Lies (1996)
8/10. a woman's secret causes family problems to rise to the surface. blanche-2 10 September 2013. Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, and Claire Rushbrook star in "Secrets & Lies," a 1996 film written and directed by Mike Leigh.
Secrets & Lies (film)
Secrets & Lies is a 1996 drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh.Led by an ensemble cast consisting of many Leigh regulars, it stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Hortense, a well-educated black middle-class London optometrist, who was adopted as a baby and has chosen to trace her family history - and discovers that her birth mother, Cynthia, played by Brenda Blethyn, is a working-class ...
Secrets & Lies
Secrets & Lies is my favorite film from a terrific director in Mike Leigh. It's about intricate and rocky relationships evolving around a family, and at it's heart a woman finding her real mother becoming introduced into this family. It's not just another "searching for birth parent" film, but one of real emotion and complexity.
Secrets & Lies (1996)
Secrets & Lies: Directed by Mike Leigh. With Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, Brenda Blethyn, Claire Rushbrook. Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely white factory worker living in poverty in East London.
Secrets & Lies
Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 4, 2022. Much of Secrets & Lies unfolds as if we're peeking around corners, watching Mike Leigh's characters struggle with personal, yet hidden, pain ...
Secrets and Lies
Secrets & Lies is the first Leigh film in which all the performances absolutely gel with the world portrayed, from the leads down to a multiplicity of bit parts, sometimes lasting only a few ...
Secrets and Lies
A movie review by James Berardinelli. By wedding comedy with tragedy in intricate, realistic unions, Mike Leigh has become one of the foremost film making voices for the British working class. ... Secrets and Lies, 1996's Palme D'Or winner at Cannes, represents the director at his best -- unsentimental yet powerful, funny and poignant, and, in ...
Criterion Review: SECRETS & LIES (1996)
Secrets & Lies, Leigh's Palme d'Or-winning drama focused on the consequences of a revealed parentage to a group of interconnected suburban Londoners, is perhaps the best in Leigh's filmography-and comes to Criterion with a diverse and insightful package after many years out of print. After the death of her adoptive mother, Hortense ...
Secrets & Lies Movie Review
Kids say: Not yet rated Rate movie. A benchmark for comedy dramas, this award-winning 1996 film is a bonafide masterpiece. For Secrets & Lies, writer-director Mike Leigh took the 1960s British gritty kitchen sink drama and updated it with laughs and heart, the legacy of which can be seen in all good comedic dramas that followed.
Secrets & Lies (1996)
Secrets & Lies. An expert observer of unembellished humanity, writer-director Mike Leigh reached new levels of expressive power and intricacy with this exploration of the deceptions, small and large, that shape our relationships. When Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a Black optometrist who was adopted as a child, begins the search for her ...
Secrets & Lies: Seen and Not Seen
In Another Year (2010), Leigh produces crackling tension simply from the quiet juxtaposition of a happy, ever-so-slightly smug middle-aged couple with their wayward, alcohol-dependent single friend. Leigh's midcareer masterpiece, Secrets & Lies (1996), is one of the finest examples of his ability to construct riveting drama from ordinary life.
An Original Who Plumbs the Ordinary
Still, ''Secrets and Lies'' may eventually be remembered as his breakthrough film. Mr. Leigh's last movie, ''Naked,'' won awards for best director and best actor (David Thewlis) at the 1993 Cannes ...
Secrets And Lies Review
15. Original Title: Secrets And Lies. Many who saw Mike Leigh's last film, Naked, would have stumbled out into the street in shock. With this, Leigh returns to the familiar hearth of bittersweet ...
Secrets & Lies Review :: Criterion Forum
Picture 8/10. Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies gets a new Blu-ray edition from The Criterion Collection, presenting the film in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on a dual-layer disc. The 1080p/24hz high-definition encode is sourced from a new 2K restoration, which in turn comes from a scan of the 35mm original negative.
Secrets and Lies
Secrets and Lies , like Leigh's other films, champions people whose ambitions are simple and honest over those who pretend sophistication and social superiority. Leigh is well known for revealing in his films the dignity and extraordinary resilience of people whose lives seem mundane and uninteresting.
"Secrets and Lies" (1996) Movie Review; Women in Film
In 1996, the British director Mike Leigh wrote and directed a film called Secrets and Lies that passes the Bechdel Test, with a ton of room to spare. Secrets and Lies is about a successful woman ...
Secrets and Lies (1996)
Check out our review for Number 94 on the TIMEOUT Top 100 Movies of all time - Secrets and Lies (1996).Following the death of her adoptive parents, a success...
Secrets & Lies
Maurice loves and deeply misses his sister. He convinces his wife to allow a 21st-birthday party for Roxanne to be held in their new house. Cynthia, proud of her secret daughter, asks to bring ...
SECRETS AND LIES
SECRETS AND LIES tells the story of a young black woman named Hortance living on in London. Shortly after the death of her adoptive mother, she looks for her real mother and she finds a white, never married factory worker who lives with her daughter Roxanne. Her mother, Cynthia, at first refuses to recognize Hortance.
Watch Secrets & Lies
Watch Secrets & Lies and more new movie premieres on Max. Plans start at $9.99/month. Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely, white factory worker living in poverty in East London.
Review: Ryan Phillippe and Juliette Lewis Star in 'Secrets and Lies
Feb. 27, 2015. "Secrets and Lies," the 10-episode thriller that begins Sunday night on ABC, gets points for style but not many for originality. It's a crisply paced suburban potboiler with a ...
The Story Behind Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies, & Scandal
The first episode of the series features an interview with a couple, Rob and Stephanie, who say Ashley Madison actually helped their marriage, offering an avenue for each of them to explore their ...
The Apprentice Review: Sebastian Stan Trump Movie Depicts Lies and Lipo
Abbasi's feature debut was a 2016 horror film about surrogacy; his second was the 2018 Cannes sensation "Border," which drew screams and squeals with its scene of troll sex; and his third ...
'Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal': Affairs site gets Netflix doc
In the official Netflix summary, "Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal" is described as focusing on the 2015 data breach and its repercussions. "When a dating site for people seeking adulterous ...
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Dumitrache — perhaps the leading actor of the Romanian New Wave — grows increasingly hollow-eyed with misery as Dragoi, whose hopes for the future are entirely invested in his beloved son ...
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Paul Schrader's 'Oh, Canada' With Richard Gere, Uma Thurman Draws 3-Minute Standing Ovation. The film reunites Schrader with his 'American Gigolo' star in a tale of mortality, secrets, and ...

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